Tag Archives: strahov dormitory

Since a few years me and a dutch friend who I met years ago in Latvia, have a tradition: every year we celebrate new years eve together, somewhere in Europe with people we meet there. This year I nearly chickened out: too much work had to be done for Frollein Europa, spending a few days abroad didn’t really fit in my working schedule… But in the end we just decided, to spend half a day every day working. And that I’ll write a blogpost about Prague.

As always Eline and I used couchsurfing for traveling. First, we stayed with a really nice host who had tonnes of Christmas cookies and a wide knowledge about Prague. But this isn’t the story I want to tell you, I want to take you to my New Years Eve.

I hope you enjoy.

Former Glory

The Strahov Students dormitory is located high on a mountain above Prague, right next to the Strahov Stadium, the world biggest stadium. In CSSR times thousands of men in white underwear danced here to show the strength of the Sowjet Union.

Today little remains to the former glory. Concrete walls scratch the blue sky. The ten dormitory blocks aren’t scratching the sky, nor do they remind to former glory. They must have been ugly from the moment they were built. One after another they stay in two rows, distinguishable form each other just by the black number above the entrance. Sport grounds are located between the two rows and I didn’t even need to close my eyes to imagine seeing young men preparing hard to contribute their little piece in the competition of systems. Continue reading →